Sunday (yesterday), the trailer celebrated its world premiere on Myspace -already, almost 10 000 watched the very emotional ride between party, excess, despair and paranoia. In the movie, Kalkbrenner stars DJ Ickarus who travels the world djing and is about to release his second album - like the Ikarus from Greek mythology he raises a little to high.. The movie comes to the theatres on october 2nd.

Berlin Calling - Offizieller Trailer zum Film

Like today: Meet at 21:00h at Hauptbahnhof - Hauptausgang Europaplatz and walk to a abandoned hospital. In the operating room you will watch “Komm Süßer Tod”.

If you are lucky, you can get on this list and be informed next time.

“The only jews who crossed the tracks in the neighborhood were students making documentaries and drug addicts”

Sehsüchte, Europe’s Biggest International Student Film Festival takes place again at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen „Konrad Wolf“ in Marlene-Dietrich-Allee 11 in Potsdam. The quote from below stems from the Israelian movie “Roads” about kids in Lod, drugs and hip hop and perspectives for young people.

The rest of the program is highly interesting as well and Hobnox presents some selected movies from the Sehsüchte 08 program.
In general, this is a good time for film festivals in Berlin, Britspotting, the British independent film festival took place from 10th to 16th of april and now moves to Cologne. achtung Berlin, the new Berlin film award which focuses on young Berlin filmmakers has just finished as well (16th to 22nd of april).

Welcome to the movie city Berlin!

Via Debug and Netzpolitik’s Twitter.

Check out my articles about multitouch displays and the Monome Midi Controller.

It’s fascinating, once I dive into this universe of shows I at least spend half an hour watching “11 Freunde magazine” or the very classy movie mag “Oh Gosh“. To kick off their efforts Hobnox organizes a contest called “Evolution” - until the end of January people can upload their creative projects in the categories music, film and street. So far, cool stuff has been uploaded but there’s still a lot to gain. After a voting a jury (e.g. with Moneybrother or Intro editor Linus Volkmann) will pick a winner in each category who will then get a package worth of 25000€ in project funding (like studio or postproduction costs etc.). Here is a recent video of some ionteresting projetcs so far, actually, I really like Pete Blume, kind of remind of Madsen a little..

And here is a video of a secret Jahcuzi concert at a Boombx event!

So it’s all about concerts and which band is able to really give the people a good time and makes them tell their friends and come back the next time. Music is a service, more than ever.

A band who is able to rock it every time are Mike Skinner aka the Streets and his musicians. Wednesday evening, a sponsored concert brought about 1500 people to an open air venue and after a little chilly start everybody got into a great mood and danced and hugged each other to get a little warmer. Thumbs up for Mike Skinner!

Yesterday, I missed Polarkreis18 AGAIN! Damn, but these boys play and play and actually here is a little concert (again, by Sli-Fi, these people have a LOT of stuff on the net..)

So what’s the program? Tonight: Trentemöller at Maria and Sonar Kollektiv, at Tape and saturday Pokerflat night at Watergate and Sunday, well, if the weather stays as great as it did these days, there will be some open air after hour like the Stadtfest or the Karneval for sure..

Nice footage, nice streaming and a nice player, I must say.

This is the first of a series of three films I shot this weekend while I had my aunt visiting. Nice mix of underground and overground culture.

The festival goes on for a week and there are people who actually spend almost all their time there. But the festival wristbands reveal many festival visitors also in parks, museums or in Budapest’s hot springs. All Budapest seems to be Sziget festival during these days, providing an impressive backdrop of art-nouveau, socialist and post-socialist architecture.

There is a nice blog, updated daily by Zeit magazine (in German) about Sziget, which I recommend, so I won’t be writing much here (to sum it up: We had good weather and bad, healthy food and greasy, good music and not so good.. ), just provide you with a short movie I cut together and some foto impressions.

Rain couldn’t stop us

Neither these girls

Get clean in the bodywash

A little classier in the famous Gellert spa

Situated in a hotel

even classier: the old (hundreds of years) Turkish bath

You need like three Palinkas after this

Drum’n'Bass in the afternoon

These “funny hats” never get out of style on festivals..

Make yourself a home at Sziget..

Picture by LotteLenya

It’s interesting: Two years ago, I was one of a few people who wrote about the Melt! festival and one a few people who posted their festival pictures on Flickr. YouTube didn’t exist back then. Last year, there were tons of pictures and videos. And this year, there are even many, many blog posts about this amazing festival on an extraordinary site, not to forget the Melt-forum which has an impressive way of self organization - one half of the people bitches about prices, the growing size, quality of the music and the other half defends their favorite festival with enthusiasm. So I watched many many videos on YouTube, scanned Flickr and the blogosphere just to get you the best and most relevant material on this year’s issue of one of the greatest festivals on the planet.

“…ein unerwarteter Schub von rechts und schon liege ich. Alle großen Momente meines Lebens (Fummeln bevor Anatomie in Bio drankam, der erste Jägermeister, Pilzragout auf’m Dorffest) ziehen nochmal vor meinem Auge entlang. Doch dann zieht mich die Hand, deren Anhängsel gerade für mein Fallen verantwortlich war, mit einem Lächeln wieder hoch. I can feel the community!”
Read the whole hilarious review at Wertaufholer [via Andreas]

So how was Melt X, the 10th issue of this tasty in-between indie and electronic music festival on a peninsula surrounded by gigantic machines? Overwhelming and amazing again I must say. I worked most of the time but it would be a lie to say that my job is not a great one. Taking care of the musicians as they come and wander around with their mouths open to see the venue and then get blown away by the audience. Few don’t get excited by that. Unfortunately Kelis was one of them. Let herself drive to the stage (20 meters..) and then sing like a man and move like a crash test dummy. Biggest disappointment.

And I felt a little bad for Snap! who had to play six o’clock in the morning after Deichkind had totally rocked out the energy of the crowd. So when “Rhythm is a dancer” set in, everybody just had to leave. Too bad, really. Opinions to Deichkind differ - some thought it was a little boring, the same show in the third year but thousands of enthusiastic people can’t lie and actually the band put more effort in the costumes and the show than ever. They always start many hours before stagetime and handicraft themselves into madness. I very much enjoyed the show this year again (which might also be connected to the many vodkas I had to drink in a very short time - boss’ order, what can you say).

Deichkind - Bon voyage:

“Melt Festival… OMG! What an amazing location for a rave/dance party, out in the middle of nowhere, amongst a heap of gigantic, massive, old, rusting, industrial, mining, digging, steal processing machines, all lit up with fantastic lighting, excellent sound and lighting everywhere, market stalls, diverse music line-up, lots of food and snacks, and cheap drinks.”
Read about a whole tour involving Melt, Tresor, Maria am Ufer, Berghain/Panorama Bar AND Knut in only three days at decoded_

Ok, but who was the best on the festival? Goose definitely rocked so unbelievably hard that I thought the roof was coming of. Such a perfect mix of rock and electro that blew everybody away. Best sound award goes to Trentemöller. He just put out a gigantic blanket of bass and melody over the crowd and everybody who expected club madness was surprised and delighted to be carried away by such a dubby experience. Polarkreis18 surely lived up to the expectations being one of the most interesting young German bands. I just hope they don’t get tired of all the playing and always delivering such an emotional performance.
Best entertainer: Dendemann. Even for those who don’t like Hiphop he did a good show with lots of head nodding and booty shaking.

Polarkreis18:

Goose - Ultimate Heavy Electro-Rock Alarm:

Trentemöller Dubby Drum club experience:

Two bands I did not see but listened to because I had to work, were Black Rebel Motorcycle Club who had a bright and fat sound but somewhat seemed to be a little fed up and overplayed. And then there were the Shout Out Louds who sounded like The Cure - great! Hot Chip surprised not only me but a lot of people. Disco-popping into the sunset. I personally very much liked Werle & Stankowski with their very unique mix of singer-songrwriter tunes, electro background and bluesy attitude. But there were so many great bands, impossible to mention them all. I subscribe to Tonspion’s view when they say:

“Wenn ihr wissen wollt wie der Jan Delay, der Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Shitdisco und Tocotronic waren, müsst ihr eure Freunde fragen. Sorry. Man kann nicht alles sehen, denn das Melt hat ein Luxusproblem: zuviel des Guten.”

But the unofficial, secret star of this festival certainly was Jake the Rapper. He played a live set and a DJ set one day later, he was always around, connecting and small talking and without him, I guess I had become target of a severe thunderstorm: Goldie in a bad mood.

The records and CDs of the charismatic entertainer, DJ, manager, writer and most of all godfather of Drum’n'Bass had been accidently transferred to London instead of Berlin (actually that happens quite often I must say). A DJ without music is a sad figure - what were we supposed to do? Thanks to Senuti and Jake’s Mac, Goldie could transfer many files from his iPod to Jake’s computer and burn seven cds. These he used for his three hour set and definitely made the people very, very happy. He was very happy himself, not to say enthusiastic: “You know when things go wrong like this and you have to improvise, that’s the best. Nothing new ever happens if you never have to improvise!” Said it, hugged me so hard I hardly could breathe and then ran off to meet Richie Hawtin (who he hadn’t met before). Climbed right on stage and hugged him as well. Very intense person, very charming and interesting. It was a pleasure to meet him, really.

Goldie and MC Lowqui begin:

and deliver:

Coming slowly to an end, I just want to pay credit to all the people who share their memory on the web, especially those who really made the effort to edit little movies about their Melt experience. There are many many interesting and cute documentaries out there.

While Justice/Simian Mobile Disco’s song “We are your friends” was the unofficial hit of the festival last year, this time it was Soulwax’s edit of the Klaxon’s song “Gravity’s rainbow“. I heard it over ten times in different locations, here, some people are dancing to it on the camping site:

Not everybody was so lucky:

“es kam was kommen mußte: Ich rutsche auf dem Arsch die Böschung hinunter bis ich im Schilf des Sees zum Stehen kam. Was für eine groteske Situation: 500 Meter hinter mir spielte gerade unüberhörbar Dizzie Rascal sein Set auf der Mainstage, während ich auf einmal in der Uferzone des Gremminer Sees eine Fangopackung genoß.” from Reality on the rocks

Here’s a short video about Red Bull’s music academy activities, very interesting and ambitious approach, still:

And I would like to finish the longest blog entry I have ever written with this video that shows Magda on the Big Wheel floor which was pure electro all the time. Out of the Minus crew, I like her best:

Here are some more links: Really good pictures have Tranzland and Sint@Flickr but you’ll find great pictures by other photographers all over. And here’s a list of not to be missed blog entries about Melt 07 aka Melt X.

Update: There’s a special midsommer celebration open air party going on for three days in a formy red army military base in Bernau, close to Berlin with many, many great electronic music acts organized by such infamous party crews like Pentagonik, Wir sind Park or Patentblau.: Check out the lineup, pictures and how to get there!

And here is a little impression of how it looks now: Michael Mayer on the beach for Sónar 2006

So they features documentaries like the BBC’s “Parallel Universe” or the History’s channel “Secret Societies” (like Skull and Bones which George Bush claims to be a member of and which also played an important role for the emergence of the CIA, as explained in the movie “The Good Sheperd“)

This session is part of the Take Away Shows by La Blogohèque and was taken in Paris before their show at the Olympia. First we see everybody quite concentrated in the warddrobe, then they play “Neon Bible” in the old freight elevator and then “Wake Up” in the middle of the audience before starting their show.

Read more about the background of this session.

Nun gibt es ein sehr gut gemachtes Videoportrait über sein bisheriges Werk, gedreht von WILL KILL, (seinem “rabenfitten” Keyboarder - das sorgt zwar nicht für dokumentarische Unabhängigkeit, dafür aber umso mehr für aufschlussreiche Nähe). Und hier sind alle vier, so unterhaltsamen wie interessanten Teile.
Und: FlowinIMMO spielt am 16.05. im Lovelite, Berlin.

“To make this, I used PDFs from our architects as a base to trace all the walls on 11 layers in an Adobe Illustrator file, then exported each floor as an XML-based Scalable Vector Graphics file, each of which I ran through a PHP script to extract the object info and convert it to something I could paste in a notecard. Then I made 11 objects (the little cubes in front of me in the video) that scoot themselves off to a predetermined location, spew out prims based on the notecards, and send them to their appropriate positions. The next step, is to rez this on the ground, terraform, and then texture-bake every single prim…”
Watch Kisa Naumova model her working place in Second Life with a perfect fitting Daft Punk soundtrack.

11mm takes place in Kino Babylon from today on until tuesday, 1st of may. There will be movies for kids, documentations about clubs and players (Zidane, Beckenbauer, Maradona) and fans as well as feature films which use football as a frame for stories about life e.g. in a small Swedish village.

Here’s the whole program, click on the titles to read a description, also in English and Spanish.

Messis Kommentar dazu: “Ich habe einfach gesehen, dass da Platz war“. Achso, ja richtig, da war Platz. Da standen nicht etwa SECHS Gegenspieler im Weg..

Update: Prancehall (aka the “Terry Richardson of Grime”) was at the shoot for the video and tells a little something about what was going on behind the scenes.

Roll Deep are aware of the responsibility popular musicians have towards their own fans: Especially in the face of the growing violence in the UK, their video “Bad man” is a documentary-like focus on the suburbian situation when guns, frustration and heated up situations come to a bad end. Here’s the making of:

Und noch ein bisschen deutscher Kulturjournalismus - Here’s a nice visit in Eastlondon, a journey to the Roll Deep studio and their hood “The estate”: Roll deep in London by Süddeutsche (in German)

[Inspiration by Playrough]

On Berlinale, I visited the Talent Campus and saw the movies that have been produced within the last four days. An exciting and very succesful experiment: Directors, writers, actors, cinematographers, editors and so on organized the projects almost entirely over the internet, you can read their public discussions on the projects site. They come from all over the world, finally met at Berlinale and each team had only one day in the Garage studio to produce a short movie. Be sure to check out my favourite “Click-Clack-Clack” and read the whole story (in German) on the Berlinaleblog.

And here you’ll see UK’s master of the mouthmade beats, Maité, playing around with some kitchenwear and sounds á la “Memphs Soul Stew”.

Made by students of ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe)
[via Tristesse Deluxe]

Find out about other differences and similarities on this friday at Avastar, Nostitzstr. 12 in Kreuzberg.

There will be the European premiere of two mindblowing documentaries about the hazardous life of bike messengers, “Messenger” by Daniel Lieb and “Pedal” by Peter Sutherland. You can watch the trailers on the Berlin2NYC Myspace-site!

Two photographers will present their work, Therese Laub (Denmark) shows urban scenes from the bicyle’s viewpoint and Slomo is one of the most infamous party photographers I have ever met. Expect some pretty wild scenes from Berlin and NY parties on the wall..

Last but not least, Slomo aka CockoftheRock (what a name, it sure sticks to your head..), the party’s organizer Murongue and me will be spinning some records, trying to musically cross the bridge between Berlin and New York. Here’s a special Berlin2NYC snippet mix I made. Come to the party if you wanna hear some more!

Download audio file (stylewalkers_berlin2nycmix.mp3)

Download Stylewalkers Berlin2NYC mix

Finally, it’s Murongue’s goodbye, he is going to.. guess.. New York! So, let’s give hime all a good shot of energy, he’ll need it over there!

You find a nice review in Spanish on the Cc4blog.

Update:Here are some more pictures from Cookies Berlin!

[via Miss Glitter]

Hans Rosling on TEDtalks

Now TED Talks features many, many highly interesting speeches online that are really worth watching. I especially enjoyed Hans Rosling’s speech about Gapminder and data visualization (sounds boring but he is entertaining, educating AND funny) and Barry Schwartz, author of “The paradox of choice” who explains why more choice does NOT mean more freedom, on the contrary. A point, I am pretty sure, all of you have discussed with friends considering what you want to be in this world and how the many possibilities we have these days are more a burden than alleviation.

This film is about life. And the director Alfonso Cuarón is a sure candidat for the oscars. The characters, the acting and the pictures are so close to life, especially in a movie theatre with a big screen they hypnotize you into the story. Look for the scene when Theo enters the house everybody is firing at, in sandals, without a gun: there is no cut in minutes, the camera is always behind him. Amazing.

So, go to the movies! Go see this movie, it’s worth it.

Here’s the “Children of Men” website with the trailer.

Here is just one negative thing I have to say. The “Human Life Project” website is not really appropriate. If you want to do something like this, do it right. Start a discussion about life but don’t give credits for solving puzzles. Sorry.

I love cool stencils, I have a great collection about this kind of street art from Riga. And now I hope I won’t get sued now for encouraging malicious injury of property..

Thank you Klaus for sending me the link and keep up the good work!

Jeff Hahn and his colleagues at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University are working on that and there’s an impressive movie clip to visualize their efforts. Mindblowing, music by Peter Kruder.

[via sounds.imnetz]